The Mystery of the Angel
by Charity Angel
Summary: In which Sam watches too much BBC America, Martha Jones meets an angel that doesn't turn to stone, and Sherlock makes a guest appearance just to fit the prompt.


Sam looked excited as he brandished the local paper at Dean. Genuinely excited, like he hadn't been since this whole apocalypse bullshit had started.

"I found a hunt," he announced cheerfully. "A proper hunt."

Dean boggled at him. "You really think we've got time for a hunt with what's going on?"

Sam frowned, his face crumpling into the puppy-dog expression that Dean found so difficult to say 'no' to.

"We have to, Dean. We're not getting anywhere with Lucifer: we need a break. We need something normal."

Dean sighed deeply and took the paper from his brother. Ringed in Sammy's special red Sharpie (Dean really had to stop letting him buy those) was a story about a third disappearance from the town. Young people; two men and a woman, no connection obvious from the research Sam had done on his laptop. None of them looked like runaways: none of their belongings were missing from their homes and, in two cases, their cars had been found near the church. Sam was right, it did sound like one of their cases; perhaps a demon.

"You want to hit the cops or the church first?" he asked eventually.

.oOo.

The police had nothing; seemed quite glad that the Feds were taking over since they hadn't been able to work out anything to link the victims, or what had happened to them. All three had seemingly disappeared without a trace. Due to the lack of bodies, or any trace that there was foul play, they had assumed that all three had run away, but the evidence didn't fit that either. It was probably the easiest time they had ever had with LEOs, to be honest: all three case files handed over, with all the information gathered, no muss, no fuss.

Sam sat flipping through the files as Dean drove them to the church. "There's not much here," he commented pointlessly. "Just the names of their friends and families. Stories are pretty much all the same; they weren't the types to run away, had happy home lives. They all headed out on errands and were never seen again."

"What's the connection to the church?"

"It's a small town, Dean," Sam said, as if it should have been the most obvious thing in the world. "Pretty much everyone has a connection to the church somehow."

.oOo.

The church was a bust too: the minister knew all three victims, but didn't really know what connection they could have since, whilst all in their twenties, none had even been in school together and one of the three had even gone to private school out of state rather than the local high.

"So there's really nothing?"

Pastor Gibson, an unassuming guy with curly, light brown hair and blue eyes, shook his head. "Nothing at all. They didn't even sit together during the Sunday service. But they were all well-adjusted people. They were moving on. Clare was getting married next fall."

"Moving on?" Dean asked.

"Sure," Pastor Gibson said. "Peter's mom died last year. Cancer. Kyle's dad had MS, passed a couple of years ago, and Clare's twin sister – that was a terrible tragedy – it was a hit and run about six months back. But they were all coping well with their grief. Peter had gone back to college this year, Kyle has a new boyfriend and, like I said, Clare was getting married. Her fiancé is beside himself with worry. All their families are."

"I can imagine," Sam said in that floppy, hunchy-shouldered way that Dean actually kind of envied because it made people open up to him. "Do you think they would talk to us? Perhaps they might know something that would give us an angle to start from?"

"Anything," he said readily. "They're desperate to know what happened to their loved ones."

.oOo.

At an unspoken agreement, they took a stroll through the graveyard after speaking with the pastor. With all three victims having lost someone recently, and two of them known to have been in the vicinity of the church when they vanished, it seemed like a logical link. They might have been visiting the graves of their loved ones when they disappeared.

And it might have been a logical link except for the fact there was nothing unremarkable about the graveyard at all: there were no cold spots, no traces of sulphur they could detect, nothing at all abnormal. Just graves and flowers and grass and one of those statues of an angel. It was one of those elegant, winged angels covering its face that Dean thought Sam had always believed they were like. You know, before they met Cas and his asshole brothers.

Sam kept eyeing the statue as they swept the place, searching for any sign of supernatural activity, or signs of a struggle. Anything that would suggest these people were taken against their will.

"You know, it's weird," Sam said eventually. "I never thought about how many of those there are around until that damn episode of Doctor Who."

"What?" Dean cringed inwardly. God, Sam was such a geek.

"You know, the Weeping Angels? The statues of angels that come alive when no-one's looking at them. They, uh…" He snorted. "They send people back in time to feed on the force of their potential life or something. Ironic, huh?"

"God, you are such a geek." It needed saying out loud.

Sam rolled his eyes, then paused. "There's no such thing as Weeping Angels in real life, is there?"

"Are you serious?"

Sam shrugged. "MO fits. I guess the younger the vic, the more life force they get. And, you know, there's one right there."

"Dude, and you say I can't tell fiction from real life."

.oOo.

They spent the next few days interviewing the families and friends, but there was nothing conclusive: everyone said exactly what the minister said they would. The vics were all well-adjusted, doing well in school or work. Their personal lives were good, and they weren't in any way suicidal or likely to run away. And the tragedy was that Dean was starting to come around to Sam's way of thinking about the damn angel. There was something weird going on here, and they had pretty much ruled everything else out.

And that was when the soldiers appeared: three of them, undercover and doing a really bad job of not looking like soldiers. The two white boys were being led by a black woman who was much better than they were at looking like she was supposed to be there. She followed in their footsteps: the police station, the church and the graveyard. She froze when she saw the angel, and Sam froze when he saw her.

"It can't be…?"

"What, dude?"

"But… She's not _real_! I mean, she's real, but…"

"What the hell are you on about, Sammy?"

"Dean, call Cas. Get him here. Now."

There was an urgency in Sam's voice that had Dean reaching for his phone before he had even processed the thought fully.

.oOo.

Cas met them at the local diner, frowning disapprovingly at having been dragged away from his search for God with no explanation.

"Don't suppose Gabriel's working some mojo here?" Sam asked by means of greeting.

"Hello to you too, Sam," Cas said peevishly. Damn, if even Cas was picking up on Sam's rudeness, he really was crossing a line. Not that Cas would really take offence, but still...

"No," Cas continued, eyeing Sam closely, "Gabriel does not appear to be in the vicinity. The unusual temporal signatures in the area are nothing to do with him. They… are puzzling. They do not appear to be entirely angelic in origin."

Dean was about to speak when the waitress came by. Given it was well past breakfast, he felt fully justified in ordering both pancakes and a double helping of bacon, much to Sam's disgust. To Dean's disgust, Sam ordered a fruit salad with yoghurt and granola. The only thing they had in common was their coffee.

"So, not 'entirely angelic'? What the hell is that supposed to mean, Cas?"

Cas looked shifty and more uncomfortable than usual. "I am uncertain," he admitted finally. "There are other creatures that can move temporally, but this signature is more like one of my brothers than one of the demi-gods. But it… This has not been done by one of my brothers."

"But it is time travel?" Sam asked, all enthusiasm once more.

"Undoubtedly," Cas replied readily.

"What about alternate realities? Are they possible?"

Cas eyeballed him. It was kind of nice seeing that look aimed at someone else for a change, because it was really damn uncomfortable when Cas looked at you like you were some kind of science experiment that wasn't doing what he expected.

"Theoretically, but it would take the power of an archangel to access one. Why?"

"Because there's a woman here who is a character from a TV show," Sam said. "And the time travel thing is from the same TV show."

Cas' eyes opened wide. "I now understand why you assumed Gabriel was involved. Are you absolutely certain that you saw the character and not the actress that plays her?"

Dean grinned, loving that Cas had pretty much owned his idiot brother on a topic that involved TV.

"Yeah, Cas, I'm sure."

.oOo.

They took Cas back to the graveyard, where the soldiers were busily erecting a mirror in front of the angel, something that made Sam smile inexplicably.

"See, they're quantum locked," Sam said at their puzzled expressions. "They turn to stone when they're being observed, even by themselves. So as soon as it drops its hands, it's going to turn back to stone."

"Self-petrification? That seems inefficient in a species. I believe it would lead to serious issues with reproduction."

There was a chuckle from behind them. It was the young black woman Sam insisted was fictitious. She looked pretty real (and pretty hot) to Dean.

"Now you've got me intrigued," she said, revealing a British accent. "I want to know, but at the same time, I really don't want to know. But you're right – self-petrification is handy for us, but ridiculous for them. I've never understood it, but the way I figure it, their evolution slowed right down when they reached the petrification stage because they can't always move. They'll probably get beyond it eventually, but I'm really not complaining. I'm Doctor Martha Jones. And you are?"

Sam gave an odd whimper at her name, so Dean took the lead, an easy smile spreading across his face.

"I'm Dean Winchester, this is my brother Sam and this is Cas."

Doctor Jones gave him a tolerant smile and her eyes slid to Cas without hesitation. "You seem intelligent and not completely freaked out by this."

Cas looked at her coolly. "We are all quite well versed in the paranormal. I must admit, though, these creatures are something beyond my ken."

The doctor's eyes appraised him sharply. "You're not from around here, are you?"

"Seriously?" Dean butted in. "You're ribbing on Cas, British Girl? What's your deal? You and the soldier boys?"

Doctor Jones gave him another bright smile. "You want to tell me why you're all… 'well versed in the paranormal'?"

"Not really," Dean admitted. "So, was Sammy here right? That statue really is our bad guy?"

"Yeah," Doctor Jones said. "The disappearances should stop now. We'll take the angel away and lock it in a mirrored room where it can't hurt anyone."

"Cool."

Cas shifted uncomfortably, his eyes shifting back to the statue. "May I? I have never seen or heard of such a thing in all my thousands of years on Earth."

Dean forced a laugh and clapped a hand to Cas' shoulder. "Seems like that long sometimes, doesn't it?"

She didn't seem convinced. "Not human, huh?"

"Well he's clearly not human," a new voice said from behind them. "His body language is wrong, and his grasp of English is far too good for an American. Also, that trench coat in this heat is patently ridiculous."

The newcomer was a tall, thin man with dark curly hair and cheekbones sharp enough to decapitate a vampire. At his side was a shorter man with a military standing and lighter colouring. Sam groaned deeply.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me."

"What?"

"I think I know what's going on."

With that, Sam pulled out his phone and jabbed almost viciously at it before holding it to his ear.

.oOo.

I eyed my phone warily as it rang, Sam's name clearly displayed on the screen. I should never have let Becky talk me into this. I should have said no, right from the start.

"Er, hi Sam."

"_What the _**_hell_**_, Chuck?"_ Sam's voice blared tinnily from the cheap piece of crap I had been able to afford. "_Why are we living in crossover hell?"_

I had no good answer for that. At first it had seemed like fun, writing true fiction rather than the gospels, getting involved with the fans on their level, but then I had gotten the vision and boy had it been a doozy: it was like the angels were punishing me for being so ridiculous.

"_I mean, Superwholock? Really?"_

"It was Becky's idea," I blurted out, knowing I was whining. I never held up well under interrogation from either of the Winchesters. Something about them made me really nervous. "I didn't expect it to actually happen."

"_Well, it's happening," _Sam hissed at me, making me really glad he was four states away._ "Find a way to make it right."_

I wasn't sure how to do that. I didn't know how it had happened in the first place: was this the angels punishing me, or was I actually a god and making the writing happen? That couldn't be the case, surely: I knew that Cas hadn't made an appearance in my original story, since my published works finished with Dean going to Hell. The fans didn't know Cas, so I had stuck to that timeframe. I had originally planned for it to be the Trickster's work, but Cas had said that it definitely wasn't. In fact, he had said that it definitely wasn't the work of any of his brothers, which kind of rules out my next thought: that Raphael was punishing me for taking liberties.

"I… I'll try," I whimpered.

And Becky would hate me forever, but I did the only thing I could think of: I went online and deleted the story.


End file.
